(10-01-2013 11:44 AM)FingerWatchTom Wrote: I agree that it seems unfair to blame religion for causing wars since there are always other factors. For example, Hitlers Catholic faith seems to play a part in his Jewish hatred. Also the Israel / Palestine conflict, despite not being caused by religion, is certainly being fueled by it.

Hitler's personal views on faith are debatable. He is quoted time and again speaking of 'providence' and the 'lord god almighty', but there are also quieter 'off the record' accounts from some of his generals and others of his inner circle that cast doubt onto his sincerity. It's very possible that he was a political opportunist, and he used religion and antisemitism as powerful tools to push his agenda. Regardless of his personal views, he had no qualms cloaking himself in the authority of scripture when it suited him. He also maintained a cordial relationship with the Vatican throughout the war.

I'd also have to disagree with your take on the Israeli conflict, as it appears to me to be almost explicitly religious. The three big monotheistic religions all have a claim on the same territory, and they all assert their claim through scripture. Take away religion, and this would have just been a petty land dispute, settled with a two state solution decades ago. But the rabbis, mullahs, and evangelicals just can't leave well enough alone and constantly fight against the peace process; needlessly drawing out the conflict and the suffering that stems from it.

“What I'm saying is that to accuse religion of being the
fault of most of the wars in history is wrong, are there examples that are 100%
religous based sure. But i would say over 90% are for power, influence, or
resources.”

I cannot agree , this is from a discussion some years ago
now ,but see what you think…

“Religious Wars.

Now when it comes to researching Religious Wars , there are several
problems ,time is a major factor ,then there is the reliability of the sources
, particularly the further back in time you go the less accurate the figures
and the fewer the sources you find to check against.

So in order to complete the task in something like
an acceptable time frame I limited my field of search to the period between the
16th century and the 20th century. I also chose to include only those conflicts
with a solely religious cause.

For instance I did not count the Battle
of the Boyne campaign as I found that
Protestant King William’s army had nearly as many catholics in it as Catholic
King James’ army. Thus , whatever else the conflict was about it was not
religion despite what many will tell you today.

Any way here is what I found …

In the 16th century there were four major
religious conflicts… 3,100,000 dead.

Spanish Armada 1588. 30,000 dead.

Huguenot Wars (France) 1562-1598. 2,830,000 dead.

St. Bartholemews Day Massacre (France) 1572.
70,000 dead.

Dutch Revolt 1566-1609 100,000 dead.

In the 17th century there were three major
religious conflicts… 8,405,000 dead.

English Civil War 1642-1646 868,000 dead.

Shimabara Revolt (Japan) 1637-1638 37,000 dead.

The Thirty Years War (Europe)1618-1648
7,500,000 dead.

In the 18th century there was one major religious
conflict… 10,000 dead.

Massacre of Catholic Converts in Korea 1784-1794 10,000 dead.

In the 19th century there were six major religious
conflicts… 25,780,000 dead.

Bahai Massacres (Persia) 1848-1854 20,000 dead.

Boxer Rebellion (China) 1899-1901. 115,000 dead.

Christian/Druse War (Lebanon) 1860 . 15,000 dead.

Mahdist Sudanese Wars 1881-1898 5,500,000 dead.

Taiping Rebellion (China) 1850-1864 20,000,000 dead.

Massacre of Catholic Converts in Vietnam 1832-1887 130,000 dead.

In the 20th century there were fourteen major
religious conflicts… 1,278,887 dead.

Algerian Islamist Uprising 1992 100,000 dead.

Croatian War 1991-1992 25,000 dead.

Bosnian War 1992 -1995 175,000.

Hindu-Moslem riots in India 1992-2002 8,600 dead.

India/Pakistan Partition 1947 500,000 dead.

Iran Islamist Rebellion 1979 2,500 dead.

Iraq Shiite Rising 1991-1992 40,000 dead.

Lebanese War 1975-1992 150,000 dead.

Molluca Islands Christian/Muslim conflict 1999 - ?
5,000 dead.

Mongolia Stalinist destruction of Buddhism
1937-1939 30,000 dead.

Russian Pogroms 1905-1906 95,000 dead.

Nigeria Christian/Muslim conflict 1992- ? 53,787
dead.

Arab/Israeli Wars 1948- ? 78,000 dead.

Sikh uprising in India 1982-1991 16,000 dead.

The point that these wars would have happened
anyway if religion did not exist ,is wrong.

Study the list ,check the facts , don’t just go
with my figures …check for yourself …then you’ll see that each of these deaths
is directly attributable to religion and would not have happened if religion
did not exist….all those lives….all that human potential … wiped out for
what..?

For nothing … for a con.

How many potential Mozarts , how many Einsteins
,how many Schweitzers ….

How much further advanced would civilisation be if
these individuals had been able to have their input.

Odd that the number of “wars” dropped during the
“Enlightenment” and even odder that the numbers are increasing now.”

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
[/font][/size]

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

For everyone scratching their heads about the Israel/Palestine conflict, what are the sticking points of the peace negotiation? Religion? Or borders?

Also a note, countries that share religions often go to war. This is seldom mentioned.

Religion is merely one part of what separates one group from another (or unites them). It's one of many cultural traits that one group might have. I'm from Quebec. Around here religion is a non-issue. Language difference, French or English, is where the lines are drawn. But at the end of the day, it's the groups themselves that fight and when they fight, they fight for land and resources. These differences (national, religious, cultural, language) simply define the teams.

It's like gym class when the shirts play the skins or the orange pinnies play the blue.

(10-01-2013 04:25 PM)Ghost Wrote: For everyone scratching their heads about the Israel/Palestine conflict, what are the sticking points of the peace negotiation? Religion? Or borders?

Also a note, countries that share religions often go to war. This is seldom mentioned.

I think I said the exact opposite. Let me check.

Quote:But it strikes me as rather rare that countries sharing a religion will go to war with each other.

Yeah, I did. This was after searching my brain for a war that involved two countries that shared a religion. Feel free to name an example or two if you can, but you'll notice that Watchman actually made a pretty impressive list of wars based on religion, and Hitchens did the same in a chapter of God is Not Great (listing current conflicts and wars). I personally couldn't come up with a single example outside of Iraq/Kuwait (and obviously civil wars, if one wants to count that). If you want to make an assertion like "countries that share religions often go to war", you should probably provide evidence.

The sticking point over the Palestinian conflict is both borders and religion (you instead made a false dichotomy of the two). The Old Testament defined the borders and said that God would restore Israel to the Jews, while the Qur'an said that Israel belonged to Islam. Are you really unaware that both religions lay claim to the entire land and say that it is the will of their respective Gods that they own it all?

As I also said in my own post, the reason for war is typically a gray area and murky. It's important to note that there are alternate (or possibly additional) reasons for the conflicts in Israel such as the Jews suddenly being given land that already belonged to someone else. As in the example of Bush's reasons for invading Iraq, the stated reason for a war can be different than the actual reason.

My girlfriend is mad at me. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried cooking a stick in her non-stick pan.

Let's see. There was that time that those Yanks invaded my country in 1812 (we thrashed them by the way). Oh, and I seem to remember that there have been one, maybe two wars in Europe over the last couple thousand years. Then there was that tiff in Rwanda a while back. I think Iran and Iraq and maybe one or two other Islamic Middle East countries have had an argument or two.

As for murky reasons, I'm pretty sure that more than one general has said, "We've secured resource X." I don't know of any that have said, "We've secured religion Y." Because you can't actually fight a war over religion because it's intangible. You can kill a bunch of people, sure, but war is about achieving clearly defined objectives and those objectives are always, without fail, land and resources. I've never heard of a religion being invaded, but countries sure have been. Halliburton isn't in Iraq to spread the word of Christ.

As for that list, I've seen it before. It's a great copy paste kind of thing that someone can throw up without having any indepth knowledge of history whatsoever. It always nice having things that reinforce one's ideology.

Anyhoo, I was complimenting a historian on an intelligent post. I'm not that interested in duking it out with your ideological position. You blame religion. Dully noted. Do I care? Let me check.

(10-01-2013 04:25 PM)Ghost Wrote: For everyone scratching their heads about the Israel/Palestine conflict, what are the sticking points of the peace negotiation? Religion? Or borders?

Also a note, countries that share religions often go to war. This is seldom mentioned.

I think I said the exact opposite. Let me check.

Quote:But it strikes me as rather rare that countries sharing a religion will go to war with each other.

Yeah, I did. This was after searching my brain for a war that involved two countries that shared a religion. Feel free to name an example or two if you can, but you'll notice that Watchman actually made a pretty impressive list of wars based on religion, and Hitchens did the same in a chapter of God is Not Great (listing current conflicts and wars). I personally couldn't come up with a single example outside of Iraq/Kuwait (and obviously civil wars, if one wants to count that). If you want to make an assertion like "countries that share religions often go to war", you should probably provide evidence.

The sticking point over the Palestinian conflict is both borders and religion (you instead made a false dichotomy of the two). The Old Testament defined the borders and said that God would restore Israel to the Jews, while the Qur'an said that Israel belonged to Islam. Are you really unaware that both religions lay claim to the entire land and say that it is the will of their respective Gods that they own it all?

As I also said in my own post, the reason for war is typically a gray area and murky. It's important to note that there are alternate (or possibly additional) reasons for the conflicts in Israel such as the Jews suddenly being given land that already belonged to someone else. As in the example of Bush's reasons for invading Iraq, the stated reason for a war can be different than the actual reason.

You obviously never studied the middle ages at all. Because christian kingdoms were in constant fighting, the muslims were in power stuggles. Hell the crusades was created to unite the warring christian kingdoms against each other. So there are hundreds of examples and you can't exclude civil wars because some were over religion and some were not. The American civil war is a good example of two sides sharing a common religion.

Also the Israel Palistine conflict boils down more to past events than religion. Sure the jews claim it from 5k years ago and the muslims from 1k years ago. But you will find that most of it comes from A. the Jews being given land than expelling the palistinians who the other countries had to take in refugees from. B. The dictators using Israel as a target to unite the people against a foreign enemy instead of fighting them. C. The constant offense from each side like Israel building settlements in land given to Palistine and the Palestinians blowing themselves up in schools and on Buses. D. They are an American ally in a region that hates us. E. The constant wars they have been in with each other have created a situation where those wars alone cause the issues of today.

(10-01-2013 11:44 AM)FingerWatchTom Wrote: I agree that it seems unfair to blame religion for causing wars since there are always other factors. For example, Hitlers Catholic faith seems to play a part in his Jewish hatred. Also the Israel / Palestine conflict, despite not being caused by religion, is certainly being fueled by it.

Hmm, while I agree with the Hitler remark...I'm having a hard time seing the Israel/Palestine conflict being anything other than religious.

Jews and Muslims had been living in that area for 100's of years with veryfew cases of violence between them. Suddenly america form 'new' land by pushing out the people who used to live there and moving in the jews from all over the middle east. After that it became a target. You only have to look at their relationship with the US and the actions of the Mossad to understand what brings up some of that hatred.

(10-01-2013 11:44 AM)FingerWatchTom Wrote: I agree that it seems unfair to blame religion for causing wars since there are always other factors. For example, Hitlers Catholic faith seems to play a part in his Jewish hatred. Also the Israel / Palestine conflict, despite not being caused by religion, is certainly being fueled by it.

Hmm, while I agree with the Hitler remark...I'm having a hard time seing the Israel/Palestine conflict being anything other than religious.

Jews and Muslims had been living in that area for 100's of years with veryfew cases of violence between them. Suddenly america form 'new' land by pushing out the people who used to live there and moving in the jews from all over the middle east. After that it became a target. You only have to look at their relationship with the US and the actions of the Mossad to understand what brings up some of that hatred.